Indian rescue personnel hunt for survivors in the wreckage of a train in eastern India on Monday July 19. Dozens were killed after the Uttarebanga Express slammed into the stationary Vananchal Express as it left the platform at Sainthia station.
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A victim of a train accident rests inside a hospital in Suri. A top police official told local media that at least 56 people were killed and 125 injured in the collision.
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Indian army and members of the emergency and fire services remove wreckage at the site of the train collision in Sainthia. Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee raised the possibility that the collision may have been caused by sabotage. On May 28, Maoist rebels were blamed for a derailment that killed 145 people in West Bengal.
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Photos of injured people are put displayed so their relatives can identify them at the city hospital near the Sainthia station in West Bengal's Birbhum district.
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A crane lifts a damaged carriage at the scene of the accident in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. The collision destroyed two passenger cars and a luggage car, turning them into a tangle of twisted metal.
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.

Indian railway platform vendors, who were on-scene to provide first response rescue and aid, rest at the site of a railway accident.
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Soldiers and onlookers gather near the wreckage of the train collision. While officials suspected possible sabotage, accidents are common on India's sprawling rail network.
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.

CALCUTTA, India — The 22-year-old was asleep on the overnight train, headed to his distant job at a call center, when an enormous jolt awakened him and his coach flipped. He lay with his leg broken for five hours, crushed under the dead bodies of other passengers as he waited for help.

The powerful crash between two express trains at a station in eastern India early Monday morning killed 61 people and injured scores more. The force of the crash was so intense the roof of one car was thrust onto an overpass above the tracks.

Accidents are relatively common on India's sprawling rail network, which is one of the world's largest but lacks modern signaling and communication systems. Most crashes are blamed on poor maintenance and human error.

It was the second major train crash in West Bengal state in two months. On May 28, a passenger train derailed and was hit by an cargo train, killing 145 people. Authorities blamed sabotage by Maoist rebels for that crash.

Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee rushed to the site of Monday's crash and raised the possibility it was another case of sabotage. But there no immediate indication that rebels were to blame, and railway officials said the cause of the crash was unclear.

A handful of accidents in north India in January killed at least a dozen people and were blamed on heavy winter fog that impaired visibility. Other fatal crashes happened when rickety rail bridges give way.

It happened about 2 a.m. when the fast-moving Uttarbanga Express slammed into the Vananchal Express as it was leaving the platform at Sainthia station, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) north of Calcutta.

Packed cars
Two passenger cars and a luggage car of the Vananchal Express were destroyed, leaving a tangle of twisted metal. The passenger cars were reserved for those on the cheapest tickets and such carriages are usually packed to capacity.

"I had fallen asleep and woke up when I felt an enormous jolt and then suddenly I felt my coach turning over," said the 22-year-old, Mithun Mahato, who was heading to his job in the eastern city of Ranchi.

"Three or four passengers fell on top of me and my right leg broke. I lay there crushed under dead bodies for a long time. At least three people sitting next to me in the coach died."

"I was trapped there in horrible pain until rescue workers with gas cutters cut into the coach and pulled me out." He was pulled out around 7 a.m., nearly five hours after the crash.

A passenger on the Vananchal Express, Mohammed Iris, 52, managed to crawl out of his coach an hour after it overturned.

"I was awake when the accident happened. Our train had been given the signal to move but it had barely started moving when I felt an enormous jolt and then I felt the coach turning over."

"Some 8-10 people fell on top of me and my left thumb was almost severed from my hand."

When he finally managed to crawl out, local residents pulled him to safety.

"When I crawled out it was only local people who helped me. They risked their lives to pull me out of the train."

Both men, along with most other crash survivors, were being treated at a government hospital.

Rescuers recovered 61 bodies from the crash site and at least 125 other people were injured, said Surajit Kar Purkayastha, a top police official. The two drivers of the Uttarbanga Express were among the dead.

Rescuers took 3 hours to get scene
Rescue teams arrived about three hours after the accident, a local resident said. Before that locals scrambled to help survivors out of the trains and to pull out bodies.

"For many hours it was just the local residents helping and it was very difficult to help without any equipment," the unidentified man told NDTV television channel.

Police official Humayun Kabir told NDTV, however, rescue workers reached the site within an hour of the crash.

Rescue operations were finished by late Monday evening, said Samir Goswami, a railway spokesman. Cranes and laborers were working to remove the mangled coaches so the tracks could be cleared and train services resumed.

The crash brought a hail of criticism against Banerjee and the ruling Congress Party, which appealed for patience as the government worked to determine the cause of the crash.

Senior railway officer Vivek Sahai told reporters that it was difficult to pinpoint who was responsible for the accident without an inquiry report.

Earlier, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, who rushed to the site, raised the possibility the crash could have been another case of sabotage, two months after Maoist rebels were blamed for a derailment that killed 145 people.

Video: Deadly train collision in India

Closed captioning of: Deadly train collision in India

>>>trains collided killing more than 60 people and injuring more than 100. it happened when a speeding train hit another that was stopped at a station. the force of the crash threw the roof of one train onto the tracks above. officials haven't ruled out sabotage.